Back when most cable networks still sort of stuck to their specialty focuses, There was a digital cable channel that served an audience that aside from MTV, no other network on cable really took seriously. The N. An offshoot of Nickelodeon geared towards a Teenage audience. For much of its early existence, the network was paired on the same channel with another Nick network, Noggin.
Launched in 1999. In its original form, it was essentially Nickelodeon with an educational bent. Noggin was jointly owned by Seasame Workshop (Yes, THAT Sesame Workshop). But when it's original format of an educational Nick didn't take off, a massive restructuring split the channel into two halves. Noggin was retooled as a preschool network, and now ran for 12 hours a day from 6 AM to 6 PM. For the remaining 12 hours, The N would take over the channel (Think how Cartoon Network and Adult Swim operate, and you have a good idea how these two worked). From it's launch in 2002, The N had one signature series. Degrassi: The Next Generation. A Canadian Teen Soap that continued from the old Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High series, and drew in Teenage viewers like flies. With MTV being Reality TV central by this point, and The WB starting to move away from just Teen shows, The N had a grasp on Teen viewers for much of the mid-late 2000s. Other shows on the network consisted of other Original series in the vein of Degrassi, reruns of sitcoms like Fresh Prince of Bell Air and Daria, a few reality series, and Nickelodeon's Live-Action backlog. Oh and O'Grady.
The beginning of the end for The N came in 2008, when it finally splintered off from Noggin to become its own 24 hour channel, replacing Nick GaS which at that point had been on Auto-Pilot for the past 3 years. The extra hours of air time meant the channel now needed to rely even more on Nickelodeon's backlog, including Nick's more recent live action shows, to pad out the Schedule, along with more syndicated reruns like That 70s' Show for early evenings.
The Final Nail in the coffin for the network was its September 2009 re-brand as TeenNick. Coinciding with Nickelodeon's Mass re-brand effort which saw the network and its spin-offs, take on its current logo, TeenNick slowly began cancelling all of its original series, along with the Teen/Young-Adult programming that differentiated it from Nick, in favor of more reruns of Nickelodeon series. By the mid-2010s, Degrassi was the only show to survive the TeenNick re-brand, before even that was canceled, in favor of more Nickelodeon re-runs. Now the Channel is almost exclusively a dumping ground for Nick's canceled Live-Action shows, mainly their more recent ones. The only thing that keeps the channel somewhat relevant is the NickSplat block, a re-brand of The 90s Are All That Lineup introduced in 2011, which showcases Nick's archives from the 90s and early 2000s.
With FreeForm, The CW, and now Netflix, there's a lot more options for Scripted Teen shows these days, but back in the mid-2000s, The N seemed like the only cable network specifically geared towards teens.
Launched in 1999. In its original form, it was essentially Nickelodeon with an educational bent. Noggin was jointly owned by Seasame Workshop (Yes, THAT Sesame Workshop). But when it's original format of an educational Nick didn't take off, a massive restructuring split the channel into two halves. Noggin was retooled as a preschool network, and now ran for 12 hours a day from 6 AM to 6 PM. For the remaining 12 hours, The N would take over the channel (Think how Cartoon Network and Adult Swim operate, and you have a good idea how these two worked). From it's launch in 2002, The N had one signature series. Degrassi: The Next Generation. A Canadian Teen Soap that continued from the old Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High series, and drew in Teenage viewers like flies. With MTV being Reality TV central by this point, and The WB starting to move away from just Teen shows, The N had a grasp on Teen viewers for much of the mid-late 2000s. Other shows on the network consisted of other Original series in the vein of Degrassi, reruns of sitcoms like Fresh Prince of Bell Air and Daria, a few reality series, and Nickelodeon's Live-Action backlog. Oh and O'Grady.
The beginning of the end for The N came in 2008, when it finally splintered off from Noggin to become its own 24 hour channel, replacing Nick GaS which at that point had been on Auto-Pilot for the past 3 years. The extra hours of air time meant the channel now needed to rely even more on Nickelodeon's backlog, including Nick's more recent live action shows, to pad out the Schedule, along with more syndicated reruns like That 70s' Show for early evenings.
The Final Nail in the coffin for the network was its September 2009 re-brand as TeenNick. Coinciding with Nickelodeon's Mass re-brand effort which saw the network and its spin-offs, take on its current logo, TeenNick slowly began cancelling all of its original series, along with the Teen/Young-Adult programming that differentiated it from Nick, in favor of more reruns of Nickelodeon series. By the mid-2010s, Degrassi was the only show to survive the TeenNick re-brand, before even that was canceled, in favor of more Nickelodeon re-runs. Now the Channel is almost exclusively a dumping ground for Nick's canceled Live-Action shows, mainly their more recent ones. The only thing that keeps the channel somewhat relevant is the NickSplat block, a re-brand of The 90s Are All That Lineup introduced in 2011, which showcases Nick's archives from the 90s and early 2000s.
With FreeForm, The CW, and now Netflix, there's a lot more options for Scripted Teen shows these days, but back in the mid-2000s, The N seemed like the only cable network specifically geared towards teens.
